You know (I hope!) that you are conscious. How do you know that other people are conscious too? This is the classic "problem of other minds".| The Splintered Mind
Three years ago, I posted some optimistic reflections about how the philosophy major seemed to be recovering from its recent decline in the U.S. I take it back. The National Center for Education Statistics has released its numbers from the 2023-2024 academic year, and it's bad.| The Splintered Mind
I would like to contribute a perspective on the relationship between phenomenological consciousness (PC) and subjective emotional experience.| schwitzsplinters.blogspot.com
Earlier this week, to my surprise and delight, my PhD student Bhavya Sharma revealed that he had customized a ChatGPT on my publications and blog posts. The model, "e-Schwitz", is publicly available here:| schwitzsplinters.blogspot.com
This book is a skeptical overview of the literature on AI consciousness.| The Splintered Mind
Why Philosophy? has published a brief interview of me on the nature and practice of philosophy. I figured I'd cross-post here.| The Splintered Mind
Every summer, I post a prestige ranking of science fiction and fantasy magazines, based on major awards nominations and "best of" anthology selections in the previous ten years. One question is whether such awards largely reflect the past accomplishments of an already illustrious career. Do new authors with great stories have a shot at such awards, or do they almost always go to old-timers?| The Splintered Mind
John Searle died a couple weeks ago. Since people are sharing stories, I'll share one of my own.| The Splintered Mind
DigiDan's "Mistake"| schwitzsplinters.blogspot.com
1. (cited in 115 main-page entries) Rawls, J. (1972), A Theory of Justice.| schwitzsplinters.blogspot.com
Back in 2017, I noticed that the percentage of women philosophy majors in the U.S. had been 30%-34% for "approximately forever". That is, despite the increasing percentage of Bachelor's degrees awarded to women overall and in most other majors, the percentage of philosophy Bachelor's degrees awarded to women had been remarkably steady from the first available years (1986-1987) in the NCES IPEDS database through the then-most-recent data year (2016).| schwitzsplinters.blogspot.com
Soon, I predict, we will create AI systems that are conscious by the lights of some but not all mainstream theories of consciousness. Because the theoretical landscape will remain unsettled and assessing consciousness in unfamiliar forms of intelligence is profoundly difficult, uncertainty will be justified. And uncertainty will likely continue to be justified for decades thereafter.| The Splintered Mind
... but what explains the change?| schwitzsplinters.blogspot.com
Most scientists and philosophers of mind accept some version of what I'll call "substrate flexibility" (alternatively "substrate independence" or "multiple realizability") about mental states, including consciousness. Consciousness is substrate flexible if it can be instantiated in different types of physical system -- for example in a squishy neurons like ours, in the silicon chips of a futuristic robot, or in some weird alien architecture, carbon based or not.| The Splintered Mind
I have a new paper in draft, this time with Walter Sinnott-Armstrong. We critique three recent books that address the moral standing of non-human animals and AI systems: Jonathan Birch's The Edge of Sentience, Jeff Sebo's The Moral Circle, and Webb Keane's Animals, Robots, Gods. All three books endorse general principles that invite the radical deprioritization of human interests in favor of the interests of non-human animals and/or near-future AI systems. However, all of the books downpla...| The Splintered Mind
I propose that we define "Artificial Intelligence" in the obvious way. An entity is an AI if it is both artificial (in the relevant sense) and intelligent (in the relevant sense).| schwitzsplinters.blogspot.com
Doubters of AI consciousness -- such as neuroscientist Anil Seth in a forthcoming target article in Behavioral and Brain Sciences -- sometimes ground their rejection of AI consciousness in the claim that AI systems are not "autopoietic" (conjoined with the claim that autopoiesis is necessary for consciousness). I don't see why autopoiesis should be necessary for consciousness, but setting that issue aside, it's not clear that standard AI systems can't be autopoietic. Today I'll describe a m...| The Splintered Mind
Since 2014, I've compiled an annual ranking of science fiction and fantasy magazines, based on prominent awards nominations and "best of" placements over the previous ten years. If you're curious what magazines tend to be viewed by insiders as elite, check the top of the list. If you're curious to discover reputable magazines that aren't as widely known (or aren't as widely known specifically for their science fiction and fantasy), check the bottom of the list.| schwitzsplinters.blogspot.com
I've been enjoying Nick Bostrom's 2024 book Deep Utopia. It's a wild series of structured speculations about meaning and purpose in a "solved" techno-utopia, where technology is so far advanced that we can have virtually anything we want instantly -- a "plastic" utopia.| The Splintered Mind
I'm traveling and not able to focus on my blog, so this week I thought I'd just share a section of my 2015 paper with Mara Garza defending the rights of at least some hypothetical future AI systems.| schwitzsplinters.blogspot.com
In Ned Beauman's 2023 novel Venomous Lumpsucker, the protagonist happens upon a breeding experiment in the open sea: a self-sustaining system designed to continually output an enormous number of blissfully happy insects, yayflies.The yayflies, as he called them, were based on Nervijuncta nigricoxa, a type of gall gnat, but... he'd made a number of changes to their lifecycle. The yayflies were all female, and they reproduced asexually, meaning they were clones of each other. A yayfly egg wou...| The Splintered Mind
Paul D. Van Pelt| schwitzsplinters.blogspot.com
By a universal theory of consciousness, I mean a theory that would apply not just to humans but to all non-human animals, all possible AI systems, and all possible forms of alien life. It would be lovely to have such a theory! But we're not at all close.| The Splintered Mind
In the history of Earth, no one -- not even Mike Furr -- as far as I'm aware, has ever attempted to construct a serious, scientific measure of a person's total moral goodness or badness: that is, a "moralometer". Obviously, creating an accurate moralometer would require overcoming an intimidating range of challenges, both conceptual and methodological.| schwitzsplinters.blogspot.com
Overall, on average, do societies improve morally over time? If maybe not in actual behavior, at least in expressed attitudes about right versus wrong?| schwitzsplinters.blogspot.com
Types and Degrees of Indistinguishability| schwitzsplinters.blogspot.com
Opening teaser:1. A Beautifully Happy AI Servant.| The Splintered Mind
Strange that it need be said, but yes, diversity, equity, and inclusion are good things. I can understand some of the backlash against efforts perceived as too heavy handed, but let's not forget:| The Splintered Mind
